Tech companies face an uncertain business environment in 2023. They grapple with tough
competition, reduced margins, and budget cuts. But despite the tough times, time-honored
rules will still work – agile, resilient, and flexible enterprises that place their customers first
will succeed.
- Adopt agile tools and methodologies
Customers, especially B2B customers, seek fast ROI for their tech products. For subscription
based products, more than half the contracts are six months or less, and customers seek to
profit from their investment within this time. The pressure to drive ROI fast comes from the
ever-increasing competition, and also the increasingly short shelf life for tech products.
The only way to deal with such threats and remain in the business is by improving
efficiencies and reducing costs. In such an environment, tech enterprises discover the value
of agile to improve efficiencies and do more with less.
Agile offers a marked alternative to traditional command-and-control-style management.
Agile methodologies cut waste. It promotes process efficiency by avoiding repetitive
planning, excessive documentation, and redundant meetings. It improves the product by
eradicating quality defects and low-value product features.
Follow these tips to get agile adoption right.- Adopt methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban, to become more responsive to customer needs and changes in the marketplace. Scrum emphasizes creative and adaptive teamwork to solve problems. Kanban focuses on reducing lead times. These methodologies focus on iterative development, continuous improvement, eliminating waste, and frictionless collaboration. Agile companies release products fast and deliver the best experience to customers.
- Promote cross-functional teams. The agile approach places people in self-managed, customer-focused multidisciplinary teams. Moving away from functional silos is often unnerving. But engaging with members from different backgrounds broadens the team’s exposure and experience. For senior managers, it also reduces the time spend on micromanaging functional projects. They may spend more time on high-impact tasks. For instance, they may create and adjust the corporate vision or focus on strategic initiatives.
- Prioritize tasks depending on the value added for the customer. Also, assign the right people for each job, considering their skills and competencies.
- Empower teams to do their thing. Companies become resilient by empowering teams with the autonomy to seize the opportunity. A key change is eliminating bureaucratic processes and reducing the decision-making hierarchy.
- Train the workforce on what agile means and the benefits by inculcating the philosophy.
Best-in-breed companies hardcode agile best practices that work for the business into
workflows. Spotify exemplifies the implementation of agile models to perfection. The music
streaming company, founded in 2006, was an early agile adopter. The company applies agile
practices end-to-end to improve customer experiences. Agile adoption covers product
development, general management, and marketing. Unlike many other enterprises, leaders
here do not dictate specific practices. They instead encourage experimentation and
promote agile-based flexibility. They set up small cross-functional teams to drive innovation
and track the progress of such teams.
- Embrace flexibility
Agile and flexibility go hand in hand. Unless the enterprise is not flexible enough to change according to the situation, they are not resilient or agile enough. The best enterprises strive for the right balance of flexibility and accountability.
- Agile and flexibility go hand in hand. Unless the enterprise is not flexible enough to change according to the situation, they are not resilient or agile enough. The best enterprises strive for the right balance of flexibility and accountability.
- Equip service teams with digital tools that help them speed up work and resolve incidents faster. The best tools automate incident response, enable seamless troubleshooting, and streamline incident review. For instance, a field service management tool automates scheduling. It schedules work orders for field agents with the skills to execute the job. The software integrates with inventory and sync scheduling with parts availability. Enterprises enjoy the twin benefits of improved customer satisfaction and enhanced productivity.
- Encourage innovation. Innovation helps tech enterprises break free from the shackles of the low-margin survival game. Experimentation with new technologies and being open to new ideas allow meeting customer needs in new ways. New products and services help companies stay ahead of the competition in meeting customer needs. Launching new products and services delivers an early mover advantage.
- Leverage the power of simplicity
Never underestimate the power of simplicity to get complex things done. Business executives often falter because they face convoluted systems and need more access to data. They spend precious time grappling with the system and data. The same goes for the products and services offered by the business. Eliminate friction in product adoption. When making new tech purchases, customers primarily look for ease of implementation and use. Often, the root cause of poor customer satisfaction scores and customer discontent leading to service issues is when the customer does not know how to use the product properly.
- Simplify the tech stack by reducing flab and duplications. Focus on integrations to simplify data access. For instance, Salesforce’s Genie Customer Data Cloud helps businesses store and analyze billions of data points. The speed and quality of decision-making improves.
- Consolidate vendors. The average business uses a whopping 976 applications. Such a large number of applications create bloat and inefficiencies. Salesforce’s State of Sales report estimates 94% of sales organizations will consolidate their tech stack in the next 12 months.
- Unify customer data streams to get actionable, data-driven insights faster. Often, enterprise data lies scattered in different databases. Since most enterprises evolve organically, such databases remain incompatible, and many silos exist. Simplifying data access is a complex exercise. Some silos and incompatibilities exist for genuine reasons, and it is not feasible to compromise the same for data analytics.
- Use automation and Artificial Intelligence
- Focus on the workforce
- Prioritize customer experience
- Simplify the tech stack by reducing flab and duplications. Focus on integrations to simplify data access. For instance, Salesforce’s Genie Customer Data Cloud helps businesses store and analyze billions of data points. The speed and quality of decision-making improves.
- Consolidate vendors. The average business uses a whopping 976 applications. Such a large number of applications create bloat and inefficiencies. Salesforce’s State of Sales report estimates 94% of sales organizations will consolidate their tech stack in the next 12 months.
- Unify customer data streams to get actionable, data-driven insights faster. Often, enterprise data lies scattered in different databases. Since most enterprises evolve organically, such databases remain incompatible, and many silos exist. Simplifying data access is a complex exercise. Some silos and incompatibilities exist for genuine reasons, and it is not feasible to compromise the same for data analytics.
Customers, especially B2B customers, seek fast ROI for their tech products. For subscription
based products, more than half the contracts are six months or less, and customers seek to
profit from their investment within this time. The pressure to drive ROI fast comes from the
ever-increasing competition, and also the increasingly short shelf life for tech products.
The only way to deal with such threats and remain in the business is by improving
efficiencies and reducing costs. In such an environment, tech enterprises discover the value
of agile to improve efficiencies and do more with less.
Agile offers a marked alternative to traditional command-and-control-style management.
Agile methodologies cut waste. It promotes process efficiency by avoiding repetitive
planning, excessive documentation, and redundant meetings. It improves the product by
eradicating quality defects and low-value product features.
The post Boost Customer Experience through Agility and a Customer-First Mindset appeared first on Suyati Technologies.
